Some background: On Monday, Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman went on Fox News and said that global warming is a load of hooey that was concocted by corrupt or incompetent scientists and a biased liberal media. This comes on the heels of an open letter to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change he penned last week that said, among other things “I have studied this topic seriously for years. It has become a political and environment agenda item, but the science is not valid.” And it’s not like this was a dramatic and sudden revelation for him. In fact, this was a kind of the toned down version. Here’s what he had to say about the subject back in 2007.
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.
Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990’s to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.
You know, say what you will about his stance on the issue, but he deserves credit for throwing around the word “dastardly” like that. It made me picture a team of meteorologists standing around the Doppler twirling the curled ends of their pencil-thin mustaches as they discuss their plan to tie climate change deniers to railroad tracks. We should be using the word “dastardly” more. I think that’s my point.
But anyway, smash cut to yesterday, when the Weather Channel reaffirmed its “unwavering position on global warming” in a post on its website. The post never specifically mentions Coleman, who left the network in the mid-1980s, so hey, maybe its just a coincidence that someone over there whipped up 600-some-odd words about the issue less than 48 hours after a man identifying himself as the network’s co-founder went on television and called it all a giant corrupt flim-flam. No way to tell, I suppose.
Sayeth The Weather Channel:
The climate of the earth is indeed warming, with an increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, more than half of that occurring since the 1970s. The warming has taken place as averaged globally and annually; significant regional and seasonal variations exist.
Impacts can already be seen, especially in the Arctic, with melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rapid retreat and thinning of sea ice, all of which are affecting human populations as well as animals and vegetation. There and elsewhere, rising sea level is increasing coastal vulnerability. […]
The bottom line is that with the rate of greenhouse gas emissions increasing, a significant warming trend is expected to also continue. This warming will manifest itself in a variety of ways, and shifts in climate could occur quickly, so while society needs to continue to wrestle with the difficult issues involved with mitigation of the causes of global warming, an increased focus should be placed on resiliency and adaptation to the effects of global warming given the sensitivity of civilizations and ecosystems to rapid climate change.
So, basically, if we were to use the adorable picture at the top of the page as an illustration, Coleman would be the polar bear cub on the left trying to bite the other one’s face, and the Weather Channel would be the cub on the right who’s all like “Jesus, chill out, JOHN. God. I thought we talked about this.” You are very welcome for this helpful explanation.
